Allan Gardens Conservatory

Rewinding to a few posts back, I blogged about my day downtown with basically my long-lost sister, Sarah. Throughout the day, she kept adding on to the list of places she wanted to take me to, but there was simply not enough time to visit all of them in one day. One of the places she mentioned was Allan Gardens Conservatory, an indoor botanical garden in the heart of the city that nurtures rare tropical plants from all over the world. I've been wanting to go to this place ever since I saw a photo of the conservatory on her Instagram, and today we were able to make time out of our day to visit it!

The cast-iron and glass domed "Palm House" was built in 1910 as a replacement for the hall that burned down in the exact same place that the conservatory stands today.

Such beautiful architecture.

This particular plant looked like it lasted all the way from the Mesozoic Era.

And it was all over the garden.

This door led us to the Cactus House, Sarah's favourite part of the conservatory.

Funny story: after Sarah, I, and two other women went through this door, we got stuck and couldn't get out of the room. Fortunately, there was a couple nearby and the guy helped us out.

Gotta get that perfect shot for Instagram.

One of the visitors there kept asking her daughter is she wanted to see the turtles in the conservatory. When I heard about this, I got too excited and started looking for them too. Unfortunately, the conservatory was already closing at this point, so I wasn't able to take a lot of photos of the cute little ones.

This shot was taken right after Sarah almost got hit by two cars because she ignored the traffic signal to catch the streetcar (which we missed anyway)

Now on the quest to look for street food.

Another funny story: When Sarah was on her way to meet me earlier in the day, she had forgotten to bring her metropass with her. But when she arrived at the station, a guy came up to her and asked her if she wanted a day pass for free! Little acts of kindness that Canadian people do are what I love about Toronto.

Sarah treating me my first street food ever! We found this hotdog stand near the entrance of Eaton Centre.

OMNOMNOM.

Literally just two blocks away were these two other street food trucks...

...and Sarah wanted to eat more so she got us french fries.

Had to wait for a few minutes for our food to come.

And here it is! I swear whenever I'm with Sarah, my diet is always ruined.

While eating our fries on the way, we headed to Yorkville Library for my first punk concert experience. I honestly don't listen to this genre of music, but Sarah wanted me to experience it while I'm in Toronto. I couldn't possibly say no, since it was for free and it was inside a library. How awesome is that?

This was a post-concert shot of us resting because we were standing for nearly two hours in the concert (with a mosh pit happening near us). On our way out, Sarah purchased a record of one of the bands that played that night.

With school starting to get hectic, it was nice to have a break for a day and just see more of Toronto. And I can always depend on Sarah to be my tour guide.

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The Guy Behind The Camera

Ken is a 20-year old Japanese/Filipino photography enthusiast based in Toronto. This blog was born out of a want to document his forthcoming years of being an international student outside of his hometown, and what began as a personal diary soon became a time capsule. In this fast-paced world he lives in, he makes it a point to pause and take something out of each beautiful moment. And he does this through photographs and films. This is the chronicle of his journey.